DURHAM -- The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival is returning to its roots in the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University.
The festival, while no longer its own nonprofit, will retain its creative independence and continue to operate out of the American Tobacco Campus in downtown Durham.
"The mission is the same," said Executive Director Deirdre Haj, who said the affiliation with Duke should put to rest any concerns about the festival someday leaving Durham.
"Festivals belong to the communities where they are founded," she said. "For once you can say we're not going anywhere."
Full Frame started in 1998 as the DoubleTake Documentary Film Festival, a project of the Center for Documentary Studies. Five years later, it changed its name and began operating as a separate nonprofit.
This spring the four-day festival screened nearly 100 films of 1,200 submissions and sold 27,111 tickets, up from 25,025 last year.
Still, the festival's 990 tax forms show the festival ended fiscal 2008-09 $61,041 in the red with revenue of $859,287 and expenses of $920,328. The organization had total debt of $321,573.
Data for the past fiscal year were unavailable, but board President Paul Berman said the debt stems from a consolidation of bank loans.
No blank check
"Three hundred thousand is not insignificant, but it's not at all unusual for a small business to have a small business loan," he said.
The board had discussed becoming part of the Center for Documentary Studies before, Berman said, and doing so now does not keep Full Frame from having to support itself.
"Just because it's going to be part of the Center for Documentary Studies doesn't mean Duke or the center is going to write a blank check to keep this thing going," Berman said. "It certainly provides stability. To be able to handle a year or two of a shortfall is something that's comforting."
The new relationship should help Full Frame save money and expand the festival's year-round programming, such as the summer film series on the lawn at the American Tobacco campus.
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Next year's festival runs April 14-17. Submissions are being accepted. For details, go to fullframefest.org .
